Environmental Architecture

The MA Environmental Architecture programme aims to expand the scope and content of design-led research in the field of architecture, environmental studies and territorial management. Possible areas of inquiry can include: sustainable forms of urbanisation; concepts of stewardship and care for nature; environmental change and its effect on migration and settlement patterns; climate justice adaptation to land use practices; impacts of resource extraction on ecosystems; environmental impacts of the energy transition; post-development and degrowth; indigenous struggles for land and environments; among many others.

Students on the MA Environmental Architecture programme will have the opportunity to pursue a degree within a world leading art and design institution, and to access the rich culture of radical and experimental interdisciplinary work at the Royal College of Art. Moreover, the programme will help students to establish a network of colleagues and mentors by offering them the opportunity of connecting to leading figures in Environmental Architecture both in London and internationally through an innovative practice mentorship scheme.

There will be several opportunities to collaborate with others, but at a minimum, your programme will include 200.5 contact hours and 1599.5 independent study hours. Contact hours can consist of lectures, seminars, tutorials, critical forums and workshops, among other types of teaching delivery.

Teaching types included in your programme can include briefings, projects, tutorials, seminars, lectures, critical forums, technical inductions, technical workshops, offsite visits and blended learning.

The programme is delivered across three terms and includes a combination of programme, School and College units.

Term 1

In term 1, you will study Studio Unit 1: Architectures of Extraction. This unit offers an introduction to the programme’s field-focused investigation into resource extraction architectures and their role in the climate and environmental crisis. It familiarises you with particular modes of work, especially design-based research methodologies, and collaborative forms of knowledge production.

Seminar Unit 1: Metabolic Rifts introduces you to the complex entanglements of environment and climate systems.

You will also take Media Studies 1, a School-wide unit that aims to increase your critical engagement with media and space.

Across Terms 1 and 2, you will participate in AcrossRCA, the College-wide unit. See below for more details.

Term 2

In term 2, you will study Research Studio Unit 2: Environmental Interventions, in which you will develop a design intervention strategy for the site explored in term 1. Emphasis will be placed on the definition of outputs, in relation to key project aims and stakeholders.

Seminar Unit 2: Critical Future Scenarios will deepen your understanding of environmental architecture and its potential socio-environmental impacts.

In term 2 all School of Architecture students will be offered an Elective unit.

Term 3

The programme culminates in the Independent Research Project (IRP). This unit enables you to apply the intellectual, technical and professional skills that you have developed throughout the programme to a challenging self-set brief focusing the role of digital tools to fostering social innovation.

The part-time programme is spread across two academic years, with a distribution of 90 credits per year. This allows for a lower intensity of teaching which is balanced by a longer maturation time for the development of the Independent Research Project.

Year 1

Year 1 is focused on theoretical and historical skills, developed together with the Full-time version of the programme. Students will familiarise themselves with the field of Environmental Architecture through the seminar units ‘Metabolic Rifts’ (Term 1) and ‘Critical Future Scenarios’ (Term 2). Year 1 includes the Across RCA Unit, which will allow students a critical complement to seminar-based teaching, reflecting on collaborative research practices. In Term 3 students will develop the first stage of their Independent Research Project (IRP-I) and participate in the Public Presentation of Work.

Year 2

Year 2 is focused on studio-based skills, developed together with the Full-time version of the programme. Students will be able to further explore the design implications of the work developed in the previous year by engaging with the site-based research developed in the studio units ‘Architectures of Extraction’ and ‘Environmental Interventions’, including the field trip. Year 2 includes the School Wide and Elective Units across Term 1 and Term 2.

The year concludes with the second part of the Independent Research Project (IRP-II) in term 3 when students will work towards fine-tuning their proposals towards the final submission at the end of term.

You will participate in AcrossRCA. This unit aims to support students to meet the challenges of a complex, uncertain and changing world by bringing them together to work collaboratively on a series of themed projects informed by expertise within and beyond the College. These projects will challenge you to use your intellect and imagination to address key cultural, social, environmental and economic challenges. In doing so, you will develop and reflect on the abilities required to translate knowledge into action, and help demonstrate the contribution.

AcrossRCA is a compulsory 30-credit unit which is delivered as part of all MA programmes.

Situated at the core of your RCA experience, this ambitious interdisciplinary College-wide unit supports you in responding to the challenges of complex, uncertain and changing physical and digital worlds. Developed in response to student feedback, AcrossRCA creates an exciting opportunity for you to collaborate meaningfully across programmes.

Challenging you to use your imagination and intellect to respond to urgent contemporary themes, this ambitious unit will provide you with the opportunity to:

• make connections across disciplines
• think critically about your creative practice
• develop creative networks within and beyond the College
• generate innovative responses to complex problems
• reflect on how to propose ideas for positive change in local and/or global contexts

AcrossRCA launches with a series of presentations and panel discussions from acclaimed speakers who will introduce the themes and act as inspirational starting points for your collaborative team response.

Delivered online and in-person across two terms, the unit has been designed to complement your disciplinary studies and to provide you with a platform to thrive beyond graduation.

The weekly design studio is the core of the MA programme. Work in the studio is organised individually and in small student groups (2–4 students), and teaching is conducted during weekly group tutorials and pin-up presentations.

The design studios introduce the pedagogy of the programme, provide you with design skills and research methodologies to analyse case studies, while assisting you with the formulation of research and design proposals. The teaching model combines written and design components, as both are considered essential practices in the generation of a disciplinary ecology. Currently, the programme features three design studios, each exploring architecture’s potential contribution to communities and organisations engaged in territorial disputes and resource extraction: 

RS3: Alentejo Research Unit / Liquid Deserts Studio

RS4: Anemoi

RS5: 1,000 rivers

Previous design studios:

The Orang-orang and the Hutan Studio

Lithium Triangle Research Studio

Environmental questions are rarely far from contemporary public debate.

Climate change, global warming, global forest fires, and extreme weather events, mass species extinction, the pollution of our air, seas, land and rivers, not to forget the pollution of our own bodies and food supplies are all daily headline news in print and televisual media.

How should we think about these questions within a school of architecture?

Seminars require constant engagement and involvement by students in course material selection and preparation, collective discussions and oral presentations.

Past guests include: Susan Schuppli, Pedro Neves Marques, Adrian Lahoud, Lindsay Bremner, Nabil Ahmed, Nikos Katsikis, Shela Sheik, RIVAL, Zannah Mae Matson, Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Phineas Harper, Imani Jacqueline Brown and Professor Aran Chadwick. 

This unit enables students to explore how architects communicate ideas from both a contemporary and historical perspective. This encompasses a range of media that spans disciplines, ideologies and methods.

Students will use both analogue and digital technologies to understand better how a designer creates, interrogates and manipulates spatial environments.

This investigation will take place in a critical context, which explores how images are used to manufacture socio-political ideologies and negotiate public identities.

We have an innovative format of partnership with a selected group of professional practices and organisations. In the beginning of your Independent Research Project (IRP), you’ll be paired with a mentor  according to your research interests and work on your proposal for six weeks on-site within the mentor’s installations. In doing so we hope professional practices and organisations might have a foundational role in the development of the student’s IRP. 

Composed of a unique set of practices at the forefront of contemporary environmental design and thinking, our mentors aim to reflect the diversity of perspectives and possibilities within our programme.

Mentors change every year depending on student interests and mentor availability.

Recent practice mentors include:

AFO

Atelier 10

Atmos Lab

BBUK

CatalyticAction

Hassell Studio

Ian Ritchie Architects

Interprt

Rival Strategy

T-E-D-S

Wayward

Yves Daccord

Vineet Diwadkar

Matilda Cassani

Autonomy

Dr. Samaneh Moafi

Marc DuBois

Claudia Montero - Fundación Desierto de Atacama

Skye Moret

Pippa Howard – Fauna & Flora International

Jess Myers

Dr. Maria Guevara, MD – Médecins Sans Frontières

Nashin Mahtani 

Future Firm

Konstantina Koulouri – Dark Matter Labs

Dane Carlson – REALMS

Curation, installation, and exhibition are important methods of communication that opens new dialogues about environmental conflicts; while helping creative the threads of research and design travel and form new collaborations. Throughout the programme students have opportunities to show their work within and outside of the RCA.